Captain Standish's fight with the savages.--By and by more emigrants
came from England and settled about twenty-five miles north of
Plymouth, at what is now called Weymouth. The Indians in that
neighborhood did not like these new settlers, and they made up their
minds to come upon them suddenly and murder them.

Governor Bradford sent Captain Standish with a few men, to see how
great the danger was. He found the Indians very bold. One of them
came up to him, whetting a long knife. He held it up, to show how
sharp it was, and then patting it, he said, "By and by, it shall eat,
but not speak." Presently another Indian came up. He was a big fellow,
much larger and stronger than Standish. He, too, had a long knife,
as keen as a razor. "Ah," said he to Standish, "so this is the mighty
captain the white men have sent to destroy us! He is a little man;
let him go and work with the women."[13]

The captain's blood was on fire with rage; but he said not a word.
His time had not yet come. The next day the Pilgrims and the Indians
met in a log cabin. Standish made a sign to one of his men, and he
shut the door fast. Then the captain sprang like a tiger at the big
savage who had laughed at him, and snatching his long knife from him,
he plunged it into his heart. A hand-to-hand fight followed between
the white men and the Indians. The Pilgrims gained the victory, and
carried back the head of the Indian chief in triumph to Plymouth.
Captain Standish's bold action saved both of the English settlements
from destruction.

[Footnote 13: See Longfellow's _The Courtship of Miles Standish_.
This quotation is truthful in its rendering of the _spirit_ of the
words used by the Indian in his insulting speech to Standish; it